THIS week, the world again convenes in South Africa, trying to forge a collective route to tackle climate change. But unlike previous occasions the expectations of a global agreement are markedly less than they have been in the past.

Negotiating a new deal on climate change has proved to be one of the most complex international processes in recent history. Hope has been replaced with wariness and suspicion.

On the one hand there are countries who want to forge a new legally-binding agreement which includes both developed and rapidly developing countries, and on the other there is another swathe of the world which wants to resurrect the original legally binding treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, to hold developed countries to account.

But a global agreement is still urgently needed. Moving beyond this seemingly insurmountable deadlock will require fresh thinking and a fresh approach, especially from the EU. To date the EU has ploughed a lone furrow to set itself up as the driver of reducing emissions. But, it has done so in a way that most of the rest of the world is not prepared to follow because they think it reduces economic growth and stifles energy efficiency and real ways of combating climate change.

Ultimately, what countries are seeking is an agreement that guides the world in reducing its emissions of greenhouse gases but in a way which does not economically disadvantage any global region. As a result, the EU should now look to other tools in order to get buy-in from those critical countries not ratified to a global agreement, such as China.

Global sector agreements, meanwhile, can create common sector-specific goals for industry regardless of which region they are based. In the first instance this could be developed for industries evident in North Wales such as aluminium, steel, cement and chemicals.

Such an approach has the potential to broaden participation from developed to developing economies to tackle emissions in an equitable and comparable way so our companies here would be on an equal footing with counterparts in China or India.

We believe it is only with these tools that any meaningful global reductions can be made.